Beyond Our Shattered Souls
by StormyOnyx
Summary: Falling. To have all you are violently ripped away from you, there's naught that could possibly compare. To rebel is to fall. I knew that when I did it, and yet I did it willingly. For him. All for him. Why? I haven't the slightest idea. All I know is… I must protect him.


**Disclaimer (Please Read):** This work contains several details and references to religion, particularly Christian mythology. The contents of this work are not my own personal beliefs and I am not trying to sway anyone in any way. This is for entertainment purposes only.

Also, I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any related characters.

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"_And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, _

_and his angels were cast out with him_." - Revelation 12:9

Humans have it so easy. They get chance after chance and all they have to do is apologize if they do something wrong. For us, it's not so simple. One mistake, one single slip-up is all it takes. Then it's all over. I've seen it happen before, but I never thought it would be me.

Two of my brothers hauled me to my judgment. They threw me onto the seal, tossing me away like a piece of trash before turning their backs on me and leaving me alone with the one I'd always looked up to.

"Michael," I breathed, trying to get up off my knees but finding that I couldn't move. As soon as my flesh had touched the seal, I had been bound to it. There was no getting out of this, but I'd already known that.

"Look at me!" I shouted, struggling against the seal.

The great archangel held my gaze for a long moment before taking a breath and closing his eyes. "I didn't want to have to do this, Riku," he said, the weight of his voice washing over me like a flood. "I've been given the order, however. It must be done."

"You can't let Him do this," I said, clenching my teeth. "It's wrong and you know it!"

"He is never wrong," he said calmly, looking sternly into my eyes, "and you must learn your place."

"Wait," I whispered as he touched my face.

"I never thought I would have to do this again," he said, running his thumb along my jaw, "especially not to you." His eyes, they looked… somber. His gaze was softer and for a moment, I even thought he regretted what he had to do.

"Michael," I whispered. "Please." My voice was small, but he heard it. His eyes… those unwavering blue eyes… For a split second, I'd seen something of my brother in them and I knew my voice had reached him. He heard me not as the condemned, but as a friend. That alone was enough. He was doing what he had to… and so was I.

"Riku," he said, holding his hands behind his back. "You spoke out against our Lord. Your crime is treason. For this crime, I strip you of your title and rank. You are no longer worthy of walking in The Kingdom. You are no longer worthy to be called a servant of the Lord. You are no longer worthy to be called my brother."

The words stung with the force of a thousand lacerations, but I kept perfectly silent as my sentence was carried out. Michael was no longer speaking to his trusted brother, but to a traitor, an angel who had broken faith. He would never be able to admit it, not to me or anyone else, but this hurt him as much as it did me.

"You will never see these halls again," he said as he bound my hands behind my back with a thick black cloth. Then, he placed his hand on my back and without any hesitation, said, "I cast you out."

A cold wind enveloped me and I felt myself falling, not through any sky, but through the world. I was being pushed out of this entire plane of existence and into the realm of mortals. The journey was a long and brutal one that ripped at the fabric of my very soul. I had visited the mortal plane hundreds, maybe even thousands of times before, but this was something else. I wasn't just visiting this time. I was being expelled from The Kingdom, unwillingly thrown out. Of course the trip down wasn't meant to be pleasant. My life was being torn apart piece by smoldering piece and I could do nothing to stop it.

After what seemed like an eternity, the world began to slow down and time began to have meaning as I passed completely through the barrier, never to return. My bare flesh collided with the hard, wet earth in a surprisingly jarring impact and I suddenly felt the biting touch of cold. I tried to reach out, only to discover that my hands remained bound. I hadn't expected anything from the Kingdom to cross with me, hence my lack of clothes. Perhaps the binding was symbolic, to serve always as a reminder of my sins.

I then took note of how fragile and battered my flesh had become. Pain. So this… this is what it was like to bleed. Had they made me mortal?

"They wouldn't sink that low," came a deep, resounding voice from my right. I looked over to see a man, beautiful to look upon and dressed in formal, elegant clothes by human standards. He stood over me, looking down at me with a slight smile on his face. "Look at you, look at you. You must have really pissed someone off. This has only happened, what, once in our entire history?" His smile grew and my eyes widened as I recognized the man. I had only seen his face once before, but it was a face that we all remembered well.

"Lucifer," I said, trying to pull myself into a sitting position or at least off of the ground, but finding that I was too weak to support my own weight.

He lifted an eyebrow and said, "Using my actual name? Not one of those they created in a useless effort to shame me? Riku, you flatter me." I was about to say something when he continued, "In any case, you're not mortal. Not by a long shot. You won't die, you won't age, and you won't contract any of the wonderfully vile sicknesses that run rampant here." He knelt next to me, lifting my chin to get a better view of my damaged face. "You can, however, be injured. Not fatally, of course. I suppose the Almighty Tyrant wanted you to feel a little pain."

"Don't touch me," I spat, jerking away from the fallen archangel's hand. I pulled at the binds on my hands, but could not budge them.

He chuckled a bit, standing up and brushing off his suit as he said, "Get used to me, kid. Whether you like it or not, we're in the same boat. You're on my side now." He took one last, long look at me before turning to stride away. He lifted his hand and with a low chuckle said, "See you around."

I was going to protest, but then I felt this kind of… heaviness in my eyes and a very uncomfortable pressure in my head. All I could do was watch him walk away before my face fell limply into the mud and the world around me turned black.

...

"I'm telling you, Kairi," I hissed into my phone as I trudged through my practically swampy back yard toward the trees. "It was like a crash, right in my back yard."

"I think you're hearing things," said the girl on the other side. I heard her obnoxiously chewing on something that sounded like chips before she scoffed at whatever she was watching on television. "I swear these things are so unrealistic. You can totally tell that's fake."

"I'm going to check it out anyway," I said as I started through the trees. "I won't be able to sleep tonight if I don't." It had been raining pretty much all week and had finally let up a bit, but because of that, it was very difficult to walk around in the muddy wooded area. I was slipping and sliding all over the place and if there hadn't been the pines to hold onto, I would have fallen on my butt and gotten completely covered in mud. "I think it came from this little clearing back here."

"Don't go in there alone, you idiot!" she wailed. It took me a moment to realize she was talking to the television, not me. "Bitch, you're gonna get dead."

"Not very reassuring, Kairi," I muttered, more to myself than to her.

The last of the trees moved out of my line of vision as I stepped into the clearing and immediately spotted the pale, dirty form on the ground. At first I just gasped, too shocked to move, but then my medical training kicked in and I rushed over to the body.

"I'll have to call you back, Kairi," I hastily shouted.

"Wait, Sora, what's–?"

I hit the end button, my fingers trembling as I dialed 911, kneeling in the mud to check what was now obviously a man for a pulse.

"911, what is your emergency?" the operator answered.

"This is Sora Osment," I replied, trying to keep my voice even so the woman could understand me. "Request an ambulance at 233 Bell Drive. There's a man here in need of medical attention. He's breathing and nothing seems to be broken, but he's pretty beat up and he's unconscious." My eyes ran over his form and I noticed his hands had been tied behind his back. Considering the fact that he was naked and bruised all over… I groaned and added, "Please advise… potential 261."

"Alright, Sora, is there anyone else at the scene?" she asked.

"No," I said. "It's just us. It's pretty far back in the woods though."

"Do you know the man's name?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I just found him like this."

"Help is on the way," she said calmly. "Are you able to stay on the line until help arrives?"

"Yes," I said, shrugging out of my jacket and laying it over the man's nude waist. _What happened to you?_

About five minutes passed before I saw the bright flashing lights that indicated emergency vehicles. The woods between them and me weren't really that thick and I could hear doors slamming. I didn't want to leave this man alone to go and get them, but I had my phone with me. A few SOS flashes later, they were making their way toward me.

"What do we got, Sora?" my former co-worker Lexaeus asked as he set a red stretcher on the ground beside the injured man.

"I don't know how badly he's injured," I said, watching Lex and his new partner carefully move the man onto the stretcher. "But he's alive."

"You left out the part about him being completely naked," Lex said as they carried him toward the ambulance. "Was he attacked or something?"

"We'll know more when he wakes up," I said as I climbed into the back of the ambulance. Lex shot me a dirty look at this. "I'm coming with you."

"Thought this was supposed to be your day off," he said, closing the back doors and alerting the other guy that we were ready to get moving. "Why would you be going to the hospital on your day off?"

"I have the weekend off," I specified, watching Lex work.

"So you should be at home lazing around," Lex said as he checked the man's vitals. "Not out here with us and not worrying about another patient."

"I'm the one who found him, Lex," I said with a sigh. "I feel like he's somehow my responsibility. Besides, the police will probably have questions for me if this turns out to be some kind of attack."

"Have it your way," he said as we neared the hospital.

I didn't know what it was about this man that drew me to him, or whether it was simply the mystery behind his sudden appearance that had me so fixated. I really just wanted to know who he was and how he ended up in the woods behind my house. Something told me, however, that I might not like the answer.

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**A/N:** Okay, so this is my first time writing something like this, so pardon me if it's a little rocky. I am open to constructive criticism. If there's anything wrong, let me know. In any case, I hope you enjoyed the first installment. Honestly, this started out as a simple experiment to test my range, so I'm unsure how far it will actually go. If people seem to enjoy it, then I will most definitely continue.

P.S. For those of you who don't know, 261 is radio code for rape.


End file.
